New Z2 GPU driver released!

Let me present you the new released sony driver for our Z2 notebook!
This morning i´ll recieved this download information from my european sony contact in germany after my long and hard conversation with him in the last weeks...

It is available under http://www.vaio-link.com/cbcdl/VPCZ2_Gfx_driver.zip for download.

Please give it a try!

- Connect PMD with notebook
- uninstall the ATI Catalyst Install Manager
- reboot
- run setup.exe from the downloaded file
- reboot

Can´t try it this day but i hope it´ll work!

Greetings from germany!

 

And it appears, as I left my PMD 130km from me Will try it on sunday..

Nevertheless, thank you very much for your work obtaining this

 

Works fine, intel driver is now version 8.15.10.2476 supporting OpenGL 3.1

 

Good news, thank you Sick Nick for testing!

My mission is completed for the moment, my thanks to my Sony europe contact is on the way...

 

Well Played Sir
well played indeed.
Too busy to test this week but a big thums up to you.

 

Thanks SirRobin!!!

 

anyone notice a gaming improvement in BF3 or any other games? what does opengl do?

 

OpenGL is a graphics API, similar to DirectX, that allows programs that use it to render things. Most modern games use DirectX, so OpenGL support typically doesn't make a huge difference.

But having the driver support for newer version of OpenGL is never a bad thing. It won't necessarily improve performance on its own, but it'll allow applications that require it to run. Kinda like drivers that support DirectX 11 instead of DirectX 10.

 

The drivers installed just fine, but I've lost my monitor rotation capability in the process.

I enabled the rotation options originally via registry settings but I can't locate them now.

Does anyone have these???

TIA

 

^OK, found my own answer: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/609585-z2-cant-rotate-external-monitors.html

 

^Give yourself some +rep.

 

Can anyone retest the games that weren't getting FPS consistent with other computers with the same GFX card (but w/ a non PMD setup obv) and see if this driver repaired it?

I am curious if the FPS problem was a driver issue or bandwidth issue.

 

I also am interested in this. Call of Duty Series / SFIV

 

Just one question, i don't have the PMD module and my Intel drivers version 8.15.10.2509, it's this version older? does it have any tuning for Z2?


Sony VAIO VPC-Z21V9E Core™ i7-2620M / 8 GB RAM 1333 DDR3 SDRAM / SSD 128 GB / Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit

 

Yea, drivers!

So it is an officially unofficial beta release?

 

Skyrim feels about the same with the new driver. Not sure about other games.

 

Only 4 days until Arkym City for PC is released. It'll likely destroy the Z2, much like Solomon Grundy.

 

And I must have missed your previous impression post. How is Skyrim working for you? I found the PMD only working with BFBC 2 correctly. (In my game collection)

 

It runs pretty poorly. I only get decent framerates (30+) with medium settings (and shadows set to Low) at 1366x768. The weird thing is, on Ultra (and shadows set to Low) at 1366x768, I get around 25fps.

Edit: After some experimenting with the settings, it seems that AA is causing the low framerates. Using Ultra settings with AA off at 1600x900, the game runs quite beautifully.

 

IT works smoothly Thanks again, SirRobin

 

AA is really a performance killer, specially on mid-range gpu cards. It´s very good to hear that the performance with the gpu is good for playing skyrim - i´m waiting for SWTOR

For me the performance of the intel gpu driver is much better - runing videos in browser is fine, minecraft can be started also now

In the next days this driver will be pushed out through windows update, so all other owners can install it

 

Great! I just need to know if it fixed the issues with the call of duty series. The PMD should be able to push 60 FPS on MW2 or MW3 @ 1366x768. I appreciate anyone willing to confirm if its working properly now.

Thanks in advance!

 

Care to do a quick youtube for us?

 

great, wheres my Z1 driver?

Sick of BF3 reminding me I have outdated drivers.

 

I have to state that Skyrim runs on my Z1 with 263.00 Nvidia drivers on medium- high settings like a charm

Next that I have to state is that I am really happy about my decision to hold on my "old" Z and not by the new one...

 

Second Life now works with the updated drivers.

 

Did someone an benchmark with the new drivers to compare to previous one?

 

does anyone know how to fix the skipping and out of sync voice when in batman arkham city movie cutscenes?

 

Which benchmark should I run? If I will have some time this weekend, I might transfer my Z to factory install and start over.

 

The text on my VGA driven monitor is slightly better with these drivers.

 

Now my visualisation software runs in Intel mode, the reason I'd originally assumed I could use the Z for most of my software.

I delivers pretty much what I'd assumed (e.g. ~12fps vs ~3.5fps of the i7 Crapbook Air in Cinebench, and about 4x the framerate in my own visualisation software), although it could have been slightly faster IMO.

I think I can get rid of the Z1's now and switch fully to Z2's. I'm happy, thanks Sony/ATI (even though you should have had this at start).

 

I have now.

Original driver results:

Results with new driver:
3DMark06 - 8530 @ 725/900 (default)
9225 - 850/1000

No changes..

 

Well persisted Sir Robin! Thank you! I've yet to try as my PMD is about 200km away, but will try at the weekend.

Does anyone know if it has resolved the Flash video issues when the PMD is plugged in ???
Eg the slow framerate and glitching that occurs when running a video particularly in fullscreen.
IGN.com videos in HD are usually a good test!
All this is fine with the HD3000.

 

I have no experienced problems with flash not n Intel, nor the PMD, not on original driver and nor on this new

 

Great thanks! I just upgraded yesterday and so far so good

 

For as far as people care about the Windows Experience Index score. Even without the PMD the graphic ratings improved a lot:

Graphics from 5.9 to 6.4
Gaming Graphics from 6.3 to 6.4

Cheers!

 

Is there any chance that a future driver update could increase the max output resolution from the PMD? it's still just 1920x1200 via the HDMI, right?

 

No, you can go higher.

 

I´m not sure about future updates directly from sony. My hope is the modding community - as there are now 2 versions of the driver (installed and this update) maybe there is a chance for compare the files and do some modification on other sets...

 

I would suggest analyzing the AMD APP SDK, current is v2.5

 

fantastic news. thanks for this and happy holidays

 

Yesterday i tried the Star Wars The Old Republic Beta first time on my z21.

Playing with the Intel HD 3000 is possible, this is great.

Don´t know if this was possible before the driver update, but for me the Intel driver is good enough for my next game

Maybe one day our modders are able to update the ATI driver to a newer version also...

 

This was one of the reasons I thought I could get away with using the Z pretty much exclusively without the PMD, since I need most of my visualisation capabilities from a laptop on the move. The initially b0rked driver was making me worry that I'd made a mistake - so it's just as well that Sony/ATI responded with this update.

The 'full' i7's HD3000 seemed to be a workable trade-off - in terms of lower but still adequate power but increased runtime - against the 330M in terms of what I need it for when looking at benchmarks. The unb0rked driver seems to offer somewhere near what the i7-3000 can manage, although I'm unconvinced it's wringing anywhere near the most out of the chippery in the same way the genuine Intel driver does.

So while I'm relieved that Sony/ATI have resolved the issue, I'm still not 100% happy. An Intel-only <$1K Probook's HD3000 can (relatively) still run rings around the Z when undocked. Still, it works for me and given what else the Z brings to the table, I can't say anymore that it's crippling me or anything.

 

I have installed new drivers few minutes ago - at first it seemed that I cannot undock PMD anymore in proper way, but one additional reboot fixed it .

Tried to play Worms Reloaded - I got 2-3 fps with the old drivers, now it runs smoothly.

SirRobin, thanks a lot!

 

Is the driver version for the updated driver (from the Intel control panel) = 8.15.10.2476? Want to ensure I have the latest.

 

^yes

10char

 

Add another successful driver upgrade to the list.

I still don't see the drivers on the Sony US site or via Windows Update yet.

 

I´m sure it will be rolled out over VAIO Update in the next days

BTW, i´m not sure what catalyst version the newer driver has...any ideas? How can i check this?

Catalyst Control Center-Version 2011.0901.1660.28670

 

Sorry to keep harping on this but anyone done any "real world" before and after tests on Starcraft 2?

 

grumble... opengl issues remain with PMD docked (in Photoshop at least).